Saturday, March 11, 2017

We’re gearing up to start Middle Ages in the new term, & as I was sorting through resources I thought I’d share some of our favourites here. We’ve used many over the years at varying levels, but this is likely our last trance through this time period & so this trip through the choices are based on the resources I know will best appeal to this particular child.

My goal is to limit this time period to the 9-10 weeks scheduled with our Sonlight Curriculum, so we can meld it right into Renaissance in our final term of the year. However, we’ll be adding in bits & bobs to help aide us along.

I have a couple of new resources to use this go around as well, which I’m pretty excited about! We also have a few fun things which I hope will be right up my World Traveler’s alley so I’m excited to move into this new time period. Not to mention, I find the Middle Ages far more enjoyable than Ancients.

Below is the list of everything we’ll be planning to use this trip through:

We will not be reading this entire book in 10 weeks! We’ll read about half, maybe a little more, depending on the schedule in our curriculum. We’ll roughly be aiming to get through Chapter 25 in either case.

Again, our goal wont’ be to get through all of this, but we will be aiming for roughly half. Last time through we only used MOH2 through the period of the New Church, but our last time through we had a great amount of other things going too. This time our aim is to follow it through, we’ll see what happens. We'll be using the MP3 Audio version.

We own a fair amount of books in this series & used most of them on our last trip through world history. The current world study traveler isn’t as much into all the hands on projects the last one did, so while this has been pulled out I’m not sure if we’ll use it in full. There are a few topics in the book we may read about if they aren’t covered in any of our other selections.

This series has been well loved by everyone in the house, & I was really excited to pull the Middle Ages title off the shelf again. This may cover a few of the topics from the above book that I want to be sure our world traveler grasps as these books are really incredibly thorough, but if not we have the other book to fall back on.

We picked this up on our last trip through Middle Ages when one of the boys had a huge fascination with knights. They perused the book thoroughly, but I’m not sure how much of that was for the photo eye candy or the actual content. Either way I pulled it back off the shelf & added it to my pile. It discusses the many levels of training a knight went through & the life they lived there after.

You can’t study Middle Ages & not enjoy a book about a castle, right? We picked this one up a while back thinking it was scheduled last time through, only to discover it wasn’t. We’ll enjoy it all the same as we watch the planning & building of a castle come to life in this book.

This title is probably just a pinch behind time wise, but it’s such a great read that we can’t leave it off. It tells the story of Stephen’s stoning & those who were brought to Christ through Stephen prior to that moment. While we know the ending of Stephen’s story, it’s still a beautiful book to bring to life & remind us of the struggles those who first called themselves Christians endured.

This book starts out a little rough around the edges with an incredibly abusive grandfather who is the legal guardian the young protagonist in the story. But once you move past that small portion of the first chapter it’s all adventure & intrigue something that I think my world traveler will eat up.

Last trip through this time period we read Adam Of The Road& found it to be one of the most boring books we’d encountered. Don’t hate us if you love the book, but honestly it was a little happily ever after for it’s time period. I was delighted to have this book on the shelf to pull off & show another side of the traveling minstrel. The Puppeteer’s Apprenticeis much more full of action & shows the good & bad side of life on the road during the Middle Ages. Beware, there’s a tear jerker ending though!

This is a new title to us, but we’ve heard many wonderful things about the book & have decided to give it a go. I was debating having my world traveler do this one solo as it can be picked up in audio fashion from Audible, but as it’s not one I’ve read yet I’d like to read it with him, so we’ll see what transpires there.

We own this book both in paperback form & audio form so we may listen to this one vs reading it as our schedule will be pretty full with all the lovely books we have & I really don’t want to rush through our various books & plans.

I picked this book up just a few days ago while I was out & about. I spotted it it on a clearance table at a local toy shop. The book discusses the various types of catapults that were used during this time frame & then has supplies for reader to build one as well as a few cardboard castles to use as your targets. It’s right up my current World Traveler’s alley!

My dad sent the boys one or two of these books many years ago & it has inspired many fun crafting sessions as they’ve invented varying weapons from time to time. I thought I’d challenge my boy to make a “weapon” or two per week from the book. A quick note about this book: The projects within can be built from general supplies around the house, but most should be done with parent supervision.

We own many of the Drive Thru DVDs & had a great time watching them through Ancients, so I pulled our next set off the shelf for the next time period. I noticed our DVDs are still sealed, which is peculiar, because I was certain we had previously watched them. Perhaps we watched them off the tv instead!?

I was actually scanning our movie shelf for Robin Hood, but couldn’t find a single copy which baffeled me as I’m certain we own the old Disney cartoon version. Ahh well, I stumbled upon this one which I pulled off to watch at some point. We’ll likely scan Netflix, YouTube, & iTunes for other titles as we immerse ourselves in the time period.

In fairness we own a few games that would be classified as Middle Ages, but I stumbled upon Cathedral while in that afore-mentioned toy shop this week. It was on special for a really great price {for our area} & I snatched it up. I can’t comment on how exciting or not it is as we haven’t dug in to play it yet, but my World Traveler is already intrigued by it because the pieces are beautifully carved wooden castles. Can’t wait to give it a go! {Aussie readers, you can also find it here, but I promise I didn't pay even close to that price. Check your local ToyWorld.}

We own several different versions of this came, all loads of fun to play! Any excuse to indulge in a round is a good one, right? The funny part is I'm not sure we own the origional as it was out of stock the day we picked up our very first copy which was playable without the origional version. We've been trying for ages to obtain the origional. Ahh, but that's okay we have the winter edition which is just as fun & fits the Middle Ages theme, some of our other versions are better suited to other periods of history.

Also not pictures, but a fun card game. We kept in the car for a while to pull out at picnics & other outings where we'd be for a while. I'm not sure my current World Traveler has played this one, as he was considerably younger when we obtained it & may have needed a buddy each time. It's funny how games where they needed a buddy became new all over again when they are able to play it on their own.

We have a few different version of Chess around too. The ultimate favourite that often comes out is the first version we ever purchased the kids, a funny little Sesame Street version. My boys may be teens these days, but this one still gets pulled out to be used. We've had to glue a few of them back together over time, but it's still holding up.

We picked up this nifty lego set a few years back on a deep deep discount at our local lego shop. Some of it is still put together, some isn't, so I may challenge my World Traveler to put it back together while he listens to some of the lovely books ahead.